


100 Themes Challenge #4 - Dark

by Yunimori



Series: 100 Themes Challenge [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: 100 Themes Challenge, Drabble, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 06:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21175154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yunimori/pseuds/Yunimori
Summary: 100 Themes Writing Challenge.Please read tags for possible issues. 100 Themes Challenge drabbles may not have a proper summary.Being in the dark is not fun.





	100 Themes Challenge #4 - Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I'm copying all of my Shockwave and Optimus/Shockwave ficlets and drabbles from my tumblr accounts over to my ao3 account. Most of these are going to be incredibly short (hence the drabble tag), and either in short-form format or 100 Themes Challenge format.
> 
> This is just for my own peace of mind, making sure they are safe from tumblr's random purges.
> 
> However, feel free to read them and let me know if you enjoyed them!

Shockwave had always been careful about hiding his fear. Sometimes it did little good, but growing up, he had been taught that to show fear too blatantly meant, at best, being left to go hungry and thirsty for a day, and at worst, the second-worst beating he’d ever received in his life. It was part of the reason he grew up shy, grew up quiet, grew up playing the part of a bot far more outgoing and outspoken than he _ever_ wanted to be, even with his strong, overwhelming sense of right and wrong. Why even now he was prone to anxiety and panic attacks if he wasn’t _careful_ about dealing with too many people at once. Shockwave was an easy bot to read, but when he was afraid, most people only ever saw the surface, and he wasn’t prone to admitting what frightened him, even if someone guessed. That was _showing_ the fear, and Shockwave had learned his lesson a little too painfully. 

So he ‘d be the last one to admit that, at times, he was afraid of the dark. 

He was _used_ to the dark, that was true. He’d never had good vision, and when his bad eyes resulted in a migraine, Shockwave was lucky if he could process _any_ sort of light until the pain went away. That had been a constant as far back as he could remember. 

As a child, his father had kept the lights in the hallways off unless _he _was passing through, so more than once Shockwave had scurried down long, seemingly-endless stretches of pitch-blackness, using his faulty hands to try and find the door he wanted. 

He’d spent nearly six million years with a mask for a head, and the eye in _that_ thing was barely meant for vision at all. He’d grown so used to living in a world of shadowy greys and washed out tones that half the time he didn’t bother analyzing to see if things were actually dark or if it was just his limited vision. There’s been no fear then, though. The creature inhabiting his body at that time had not known the meaning of the word, regardless of what little remained of Shockwave himself. 

Now, even with so many wrongs righted – his head, his hands, his _heart_ – darkness was still something he was…used to. And yet it was still something he feared. 

Nightmares came from the darkness. Shapes that his eyes could barely see emerged from shadows when he woke in the middle of the night, taking on the forms of what he had been dreaming. 

Revenge came from the darkness, took weapons to his body, using fire to hide itself while blinding him, whispering words of hate that he couldn’t refute anymore than he could defend himself against the things he could not see.

Darkness ate away at colour, leaving him questioning himself sometimes, so that he had to touch his own head to make sure it was still there. The fear that it was all a dream and he was still faceless, still less than a beast, was present too easily.

Darkness left him blind, left him having to depend on touch, on sound, left him desperate to be held without being able to articulate _why_, even if Optimus was always patient with his neediness when it struck. It left him ashamed. 

But Shockwave would be the last to admit that he feared the dark. Though one good thing about it: darkness also masked the fear that _he_ could not hide behind a brave face.


End file.
